A Retrospective
I am a stylistic chameleon, writing what I want to hear. Yet, I am not a stylistic pluralist in the sense of layering styles or shifting rapidly between them. For me, the craft is paramount—not the style itself. I have sought to challenge the boundaries between the acoustic and the electronic, between strict composition and spontaneous impulse. A constant interplay between structure and freedom, between technology and human sensuality. I view my music as a dialogue – between myself and the listener, between sound and silence, between order and chaos.
Childhood. As a boy, I grew up in the countryside of Lejre Municipality in a home with a piano, but without radio or television. My mother was a homemaker, fully occupied with managing our home and raising four children. My father was a butcher who ran a shop and slaughterhouse together with his brother. He started at age 14 and continued until he retired at 75. It was a harmonious home where faith in God was an integral part of daily life, filled with positive experiences from the free church located just across the main road from where we lived. Faith has been a faithful companion, though it has fluctuated in intensity and undergone re-evaluations and reformulations. At age seven, my sister Merete taught me piano. However, I was more preoccupied with removing the wooden panel from the piano and holding down the sostenuto pedal to create magical timbres by playing directly on the strings with the lights off and the curtains drawn in the living room. Thus, an inner stream of sonic imagery was awakened. At ten, I took up the guitar, strongly influenced by my cousin Filip and my two brothers-in-law. But when my guitar teacher told me he had nothing left to teach me, I transitioned at age 15 to the music school in Allerslev. There, I studied piano with Aksel Skjoldan – an inspiring, classically trained teacher who helped steer me toward a career as a musician.
High School Years. My high school years, at Roskilde Katedralskole, were an explosive transition from a small local environment to a daily life among 600–700 peers. I graduated in 1984 from the music-mathematics specialization. In music class, we had Valdemar Lønsted, who opened my mind to music history, chorale harmonization, baroque bass, and folk music arrangement. He took us to performances of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Its fourth Adagio movement can push any sensitive teenager to the edge of their emotional register. That concert also featured Penderecki’s Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, which left a deep impression due to its foreign yet articulated expression during an era when the Cold War and nuclear threats were a stark reality. Other revolutionary musical encounters from the high school music room included Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps and Schönberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw.
The Conservatory. In late 1984, I contacted composer and professor Ib Nørholm to discuss whether he believed I had the potential to study composition. It was with a trembling heart that I knocked on the door of his villa, Solhaven, in Hellerup. He encouraged me, suggesting I should apply for the dual major in Music Theory and Composition. I began my studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 1986. Ib Nørholm was an outstanding teacher.
In 1989, I married my wonderful Anne, with whom I have two sons: Valdemar (born 2001) and Villads (born 2004). Although I grew up in a safe and loving home, I had never imagined becoming a father. Yet, I must say that becoming and being a father is the greatest thing that has happened in my life. In 1989, I was also hired as a substitute for Ebbe Knudsen in music theory at the conservatory.
From 1990–1991, I took a leave of absence to teach at the academy and to immerse myself in my work. I felt compositionally adrift until I fell head-over-heels in love with a highly abstract, modernist style. The music of Boulez and Stockhausen’s KONTAKTE and KLAVIERSTÜCKE represented the progressive music I admired: consistent and uncompromising. Since Ivar Frounberg had written several analytical articles on Boulez for Dansk Musik Tidsskrift (Danish Music Journal), I continued my composition studies with him as my primary teacher in 1991.
Upon completing my diploma in both majors in 1993 and being admitted to the soloist class as a composer, I could look back on seven years of extraordinary theory lessons with harpsichordist, composer, and theorist Professor Yngve Jan Trede, whose unsurpassed expertise spanned from the Renaissance to early 20th-century music.
Dear Ib Nørholm, Ivar Frounberg, and Yngve Jan Trede: I am deeply grateful for everything I learned from you. You shared an enormous wealth of knowledge and insight.
Debut Concert. Before my debut concert with an expanded Figura Ensemble, I had taken another year of leave, during which I studied music theory with Professor Lev Koblyakov in Israel. Together with Figura, I performed my debut in 1996 at the conservatories in Odense and Aarhus, in the gala hall of the former conservatory on H.C. Andersens Boulevard in Copenhagen, and in the Danish National Broadcasting Radio House, Studio 2 (Radiohuset’s Studie 2, now known as the Studio Hall at the Royal Danish Academy of Music on Rosenørns Allé). These four concerts were a manifestation accompanied by an extensive program book authored by my friend Jakob Goetz. The concert was released on my first CD, Unsägliche Stelle, which features three acoustic works and three live electronics works where acoustic instruments and electronic sounds merge. However, Figura’s regular and excellent clarinettist, Anna Klett, had to find a substitute, who turned out to be Fritz Gerhard Berthelsen.
Contemporánea and Max/MSP. This led to the next chapter. In 1997, Fritz and I founded Ensemble Contemporánea in connection with a series of tours to South America. Following the German-Swiss ironic-grotesque music theater project Happy in Dorado City (1998), directed by Wolfgang Häntsch, we expanded in 1998 to include percussion, and from 1999, the permanent lineup grew to include violin and double bass. In 2000-2001, we gained national recognition with a series of portrait concerts at Huset i Magstræde, broadcast by Danish National Radio and received significant critical acclaim. We continued with concerts at the ICMC (International Computer Music Conference) in Cuba, followed by the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) in Hong Kong, eventually leading to our first US concert at New York University in 2003. Coinciding with this period, I was honoured to receive the Danish Arts Foundation’s 3-year working grant (1998-2001). This era culminated in my next CD, Contemporánea (2001), featuring five works with Spanish titles for bass clarinet, percussion, and live electronics.
Ever since the summer of 2000, Max/MSP has been a defining part of my artistic practice. Max, also known as Max/MSP/Jitter, is a visual (object-oriented) programming language for music and multimedia. My journey with Max began tentatively around my debut concert, using it via MIDI to control an Ensoniq DP4+ effects processor, and later an AKAI 3200XL sampler in 1997. I was ready when Apple launched the MacBook G3 in 1999, leading to an intensive period of Max/MSP study in 2000. Since then, I have developed a series of Max patches in an ongoing process that have become integral to my artistic expression and compositional tools.
From City to Country. In 2005, my small family moved from Nørrebro to a 1940s red brick house in Frederiksværk. As the electronic music program at the Aarhus Conservatory had just launched in 2004, and I felt closer to Aarhus via the Odden ferry, I taught there from 2005 to 2008. However, the hourly basis was too small to sustain. During the same period, Contemporánea received a three-year grant from the Bikuben Foundation for the Interactive Art project, resulting in a new series of concerts at LiteraturHaus.
The Crisis. In many ways, 2007–2008 became a void. Commissions were scarce, funding for artistic projects was low, and the international financial crisis had hit hard. I began seeing ghosts everywhere, imagining a non-existent resentment toward my music. At that time, Klaus Ib Jørgensen was a membership consultant for the Danish Composers’ Society. I met with him in 2008, and he was instrumental in making the ghosts vanish and helping me restart my artistic vision. It was the “friendly kick in the pants” I needed at exactly that moment.
On the Other Side. In 2009, I co-founded the EarUnit concert series with Carsten Bo Eriksen and several other composers. Through my work in Contemporánea and EarUnit, I have commissioned and premiered numerous works by Danish and international composers. Contemporánea has also released CDs featuring composers like Morten Skovgaard Danielsen (Roadmovie Accessories) and Mogens Christensen (Echoes of Dreamless Fragments). That same year, I returned to New York, this time with Frode Andersen, to participate in Suzanne Bocanegra’s installation concert, ReRememberer, featuring 100 non-musicians on violin, an amplified wooden loom, accordion, and live electronics. That project toured Texas in 2014.
In 2011, I released another Contemporánea CD, Flug der Farben, featuring ensemble and solo works in both stereo and 5.1 surround sound – tailored to the home cinema era. This was followed in 2012 by Auxiliary Blue, a 45-minute collaborative composition with Berlin-based electronica composer Frank Bretschneider.
2013 was a monstrously creative year. I composed Obscure Transparence for the JACK Quartet; The Shadow, a school concert performance for clarinettist and video; Texture 1 and Mosaico 1 for the TRANSIT Ensemble; Fluctuant for cellist Zoe Martlew; Nine Waves for the Messer Quartet; and Partita Melancólica for pianist Alfredo Oyaguez.
Pianist. In 2015, I was hired in a project position at the Conservatory of Music in Esbjerg within the electronic music department. This has gradually grown into a position where I teach 3D Audio, Interactive Sound, Music Technology, and major-subject Composition. That same year, I was hired as a pianist in a free church in Frederiksværk. Four years later, the joy of performing for others on the piano led me to compose my Danish Golden Age Pieces, which cellist Josefine Opsahl and I premiered at the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) in 2019. Since the paintings were from the 1800s, I took the opportunity to compose simple, tonal music. It remains one of my only works without live electronics in over 20 years. This led to a “new” Contemporánea with cellist Ida Nørholm, clarinettist Fritz Gerhard Berthelsen, and me as pianist in the acoustic work Garden of Gethsemane – Hommage à Arne Haugen Sørensen (2021). This was followed by LEGENDE (2023), set to a poem by Ib Michael, for the same ensemble but adding Matias Seibæk on percussion and returning to live electronics via Max.
The current culmination of my career was the 2023 premiere of Slender Trees at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, performed by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) with me on keys. I am now looking forward to a commission, LYSHAV (Sea of Light), from the legendary Bang on a Can society for soprano, violin, flugelhorn, accordion, and Max/MSP for the Long Play Festival in May 2026 in New York, as well as the premiere of a string quintet at Carnegie Hall in late 2027.
Work Series. Beyond my recent path as a pianist, the last 15 years have been characterized by composing works in larger projects that can stand alone as full-length concerts. While some series go back further, this way of working has only become more pronounced over the years. These series allow me to immerse myself in specific digital techniques, theoretical musical issues, or poetic and visual themes.
Elegie 1-8 (1993-2004)
different formations inspired by the Rilke Elegies
Passage 1-5 (2010-2012)
different formations, score music with improvised passages
Stillstehen 1-5 (2009-2017)
Ensemble Adapter, Berlin, 4 musicians, Max/MSP (47-51’)
Textures & Mosaics
Textures & Mosaics, volume 1 (2013-2015), Transit Ensemble, NYC, 5 musicians, Max/MSP (34’)
Textures & Mosaics, volume 2 (2013-2018), string quartet, Max/MSP, JACK quartet, ACME (34’)
CRATAEGI (2012, 2022)
percussion solo, Max/MSP, video; based on art by Nes Lerpa (47:47)
Nordic Trilogy(2020-2022) (71′)
Nordic Broken (messiaen-quartet, Max/MSP)
Nordic Fragments (piano trio, Max/MSP)
Nordic Extraction (piano quartet, Max/MSP)
BILLOW (STURMWELLE, 2020, 2024)
solo clarinet (Bb, G, bass), Max/MSP, video (45:47’)
LEGENDE (2023)
Contemporánea, cl/vc/perc/pno/Max (51-53’)
Artist Pieces
Hammershøi Pieces (2015) – Light in Structure 1-6 (23’)
Danish Golden Age Pieces (2019, 19’), acoustique
Arne Haugen Sørensen Pieces – Garden of Gethsemane (15:45’), acoustique
Slender Trees (2023, 21’) – a Hammershøi drawing
Giacometti Pieces (2024) – Fragile Fortitude 1-5 (19:31’)
String Quartet No. 1-9 (2004-2025)
including Die achte Elegie
Characteristics. An omnipresent characteristic of my work is the combination of acoustic instruments and electronic sound. The performer – with their live, human expression – sometimes in interplay and fusion with electronic sound, and at other times in opposition, where conflict or friction is the focus. Purely music-theoretical problems are another source of inspiration: form and proportion, harmonic structure, polyrhythmic layers. I have returned many times to the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, and Ib Michael wrote the poem for my work LEGENDE. The intersection of music and visual art is evident in my Artist Pieces and collaborations with video artists (such as Anders Elberling, Lillevan, Simon Janssen, and Kim Dang Trong). Notably, the large-scale solo percussion work CRATAEGI, premiered and recorded by David Hildebrandt, was inspired by the paintings of Nes Lerpa.
Teaching. It is a great joy to meet the younger generation in a teaching context; it is deeply inspiring to see what captures their interest. It is stimulating to dive into both new and old material, communicating it in fresh ways and exploring new fields, always focusing on the individual student’s talents and interests.
Recording Artist. Greatly aided by composer Carsten Bo Eriksen, I have released a wide range of works on digital streaming platforms since 2022. I have a fixed workflow where a commission leads not just to a premiere but to a studio recording, ideally immediately following the concert. In the context of the electronic components of my work, it is fantastic to refine – and in some cases, alter and further develop – the electronic timbres during production. In this way, the music reaches millions of people.
Style and Craft. In my late twenties, I was a convinced modernist. Complex atonal music was, in my view, the only “progressive” path. However, experimental electronica and break-beats began to permeate certain works in the 2000s. Melodic elements also began to assert themselves. Later, tonal and modal music became part of my artistic expression. These are, of course, foreign elements within a modernist aesthetic. They seeped in through desire rather than calculated strategy. Why should I hold back from composing a Renaissance movement, a Baroque fugue, or a reinterpretation of a Baroque suite, passacaglia, or chaconne? Or a techno-driven movement or 80s-inspired fusion? Or Arabic-influenced Balkan music?
I consider myself a stylistic chameleon. I write what I want to hear. I am not a stylistic pluralist, but I am dogmatic about the fact that each work – or at least each movement – has its own dedicated stylistic expression. For me, music is an existential investigation. It reflects our time, our inner lives, and the patterns we move within. It creates connections between past and present, between the personal and the universal. I see my music as a dialogue – between the listener and me, between sound and silence, between order and chaos.
Retrospective. Now, looking back across six decades, I feel privileged and grateful. I see it as a process that has always been in motion. I think of all that became possible in my life – the experiences with so many people in so many places. As a high schooler, I hardly dared hope for a conservatory education, a career as a piano teacher in the provinces. Instead, I have been allowed to live a life that has far exceeded my wildest imagination. Thank you to everyone who has helped and supported me along the way – practically, financially, and existentially. Music evolves as we do. And I am still driven by the same curiosity, the same desire to explore the unknown. For there is still so much to discover. I love my work as a composer.
Ejnar Kanding, March 29, 2025